Love math? Moderate anxiety may improve performance

New York: If you value math, a little nervousness in relation to math problems may actually improve your performance, suggests new research.

The researchers found that a moderate level of math anxiety was associated with high math performance among students who reported high math motivation -- that is, among students who reported that they valued math and embraced math challenges. For those who are low in this kind of math motivation, however, high math anxiety appears to be linked with low math performance, the study said.

While some children might be anxious about math because it is extremely difficult for them and they feel threatened by it, others might be anxious about math because they want to perform well.

The researchers hypothesised that different underlying motivations for these two groups may have different consequences for math learning behaviours and performance.